Finally, after months of endless BS talk of what small hands mean and horrendous political memes, Wednesday night finally touched on an actual issue: abortion and reproductive rights. For many, this is a tough subject for thousands of different reasons. My opinion is probably not going to coincide with yours. That’s alright, the point of a debate is a disagreement. With that said, I believe everyone should look at the whole picture. Why are people against abortion? Why do people support having the freedom of choice? What defines life inside of another human? What kinds of situations are people face? What is late term abortion and what does that mean? Many people have answers to these questions, but so many refuse to acknowledge them which is an issue. It’s 2016 and women still have to fight to keep religion out of their lady bits.

I will start by saying in my opinion that everyone is entitled to their own business. If my neighbor decides to smoke a joint, that is not my problem. Do they want to make meth? I have a problem because that jeopardizes my health. If my neighbor decides to have an abortion, I don’t need to know. Their choice affects me in no way, and I should have no say in the matter. She has her situations, her demons to battle, and her body. Unless my neighbors do something that poses an immediate risk for my loved ones and myself, I do not give a damn what they do. Just don’t blow the town up, you do you, boo boo.

I am everything a lot of people hate; I am a liberal feminist that is pro-choice.

I am pro-choice because the church does not belong in your uterus and the government doesn't either. Older men in power that get disgusted over menstruation should not be in control of a woman’s body, no matter what the circumstance is. I understand that things can happen in life. Condoms break, birth control is not always effective; Plan B is not always an option (and is sometimes seen as an abortion in itself,) some spermicides can cause urinary tract infections (which in severe cases can be fatal,) and sometimes a proper sex education course isn’t readily available. I know my high school sex ed didn’t teach me anything, so how on earth are we supposed to trust our teens and young adults to practice safe sex without the proper guidance? For years, sex education focused on abstinence-only sexual education. Want to know how effective that was? It wasn’t. Not only was it completely useless and a waste of everyone’s time, but it was also a waste of money. The Bush administration focused heavily on abstinence-only sex education, funneling around $50 million into. Happy to know it didn’t even work, either.

Religion is an essential component when it comes to anti-abortion discussion. It’s against the lord’s way; it is murder; it is just plain morally wrong. I know some pro-lifers that are also for the death penalty. It’s a little ironic to me. I have no issue with pro-lifers. If you don’t like this, great, don’t have one. I have an issue when they drag people down. While you are standing outside of a planned parenthood with your angry signs and your cruel words, take a moment to come inside and have a seat. Leave your sign outside, speak no words, and just sit and observe. No one is happy to be sitting in a Planned Parenthood waiting room. Nobody has an abortion because it’s fun. It happens. Partners leave, people lack health insurance, and there are even more painful struggles as well. For all you know, this person could end up homeless for their pregnancy; this person can have a major addiction which will harm the baby. The woman you just screamed vulgarities at may be scared and lonely, running out of options. The decision to end a pregnancy is a painful decision, one that is incredibly intimate and will impact a person for the rest of their life.

It’s okay to be pro-life, but if you’re going to be pro-life, do it for yourself. Let that be your personal choice. You are entitled to your body no matter what your personal circumstances are. Your decision to keep that baby does not affect me, or anyone else, just you. Anyone else’s personal choice to terminate a pregnancy is their personal choice that does affect you or me, or anyone else; just them. You are in no position to make decisions for other people. Stop making people feel more guilt than necessary for the decisions that they make. Stop screaming at people entering a planned parenthood; odds are they are someone like me just looking to get a cancer screening, a Pap, or some damn birth control.

In the debate on Wednesday, Trump described a late-term abortion as “ripping the baby out at nine months.” That isn’t really how it works, but using fear is one of his best qualities. 1.5 percent of abortions are performed after 21 weeks of pregnancy; this is what is considered late term. Now is not the period where women panic and say “I know I’m due in a week, but I can’t commit. Get it out, please.” The late term termination of pregnancy is for the extreme cases where the baby will be suffering, or their mother will be in great danger. Pregnancy is a beautiful, yet crazy and wild adventure. Sometimes, the adventure is to hell and back. I do not have any children; this makes me a little bit biased, but I can acknowledge that I do want them one day. The problem is, I will struggle. With my PCOS, I can fall into a high-risk pregnancy. One day I may need to have a late term abortion and people will mock and criticize me for my selfish decision making, but I am not there yet. I will hope and pray until my time to have children comes that things can go smooth for me, just for once, but pregnancy is often unpredictable.

Be kind to others. Be empathetic. Be understanding.